vultures 97
Thomsett lowers his binoculars and expands
on the list of anthropogenic threats to Kenya’s
vultures. Farmers are planting corn and wheat
around protected areas to feed the growing pop-
ulation, he says. Less grassland means fewer
ungulates for vultures to eat. The government
hasn’t been able to stop drilling for geother-
mal wells within 300 meters (328 yards) of
endangered Rüppell’s nesting sites, he contin-
ues. Vultures are also killed in collisions with
high-tension power lines. The Kenya Wildlife
Service has yet to write, let alone implement,
a strategic plan for vulnerable vulture species.
(Such a plan is imminent, the service’s Charles
Musyoki told me.)
In December 2013 Kenya passed an act that
imposes a fine of up to 20 million shillings
($200,000) or life imprisonment on anyone
linked with killing an endangered species. And
the Kenya Wildlife Service is said to be plan-
ning a campaign to shift the public’s perception
of vultures. But without better investigating
and enforcement of anti-poisoning laws, to
say nothing of convicting perpetrators, Ogada
and Thomsett agree, such campaigns won’t be
nearly enough to save the region’s birds. More
immediately effective, they say, would be for
the government to accept an offer from a land-
owner in southwestern Kenya. He has offered
to sell land containing one of the nation’s most
important breeding cliffs for the critically en-
dangered Rüppell’s vulture.
Thomsett continues to observe the vultures
wallowing in putridity, making detailed sketches
of their heads and feet in a thick notebook, until
the birds have eaten their fill and the wildebeest
resembles a wrinkled blue-gray rug, with hooves.
In the days to come, any remaining scraps of skin
and sinew will be ravaged by the elements, by in-
sects, fungi, and microbes. The ungulate’s larger
bones will persist for years, but in the meantime
its basic building blocks will cycle on—in the soil,
in vegetation, and in every glorious vulture that
fed on its prodigal abundance today. j